Welcome to Wednesday Word, a weekly linkup for everyone, not just health and fitness bloggers. Each Wednesday you will have a single word prompt to write about.  Let your imagination run free and share with your readers your interpretation of that word, or simply use it as inspiration for your post. Today’s word is complacent…..  I’d love to have you link up, and if you do, please remember to follow my six simple rules.

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Complacent – satisfied with how things are and not wanting to change them
~ Merriam-Webster

 

Complacency started for me soon after I stopped coaching for Worldgate Sport & Health.  Tuesdays no longer required me to meet my runners at the track for speed workouts, and I stopped writing out my own training schedule when I no longer needed to write plans for my WG runners.  I threw tempo runs out the window and embraced conversation paced runs. 

I became complacent, and I was happy.

Perhaps I was just burned out from years of training hard, and needed a break – a chance to reset. Perhaps I thought I’d accomplished all I was meant to accomplish, and it was time to settle for the status quo. Or perhaps I’d become lazy and didn’t even notice.

Whatever it was, it seemed right, and I didn’t worry.

Complacency is a funny thing.  When you’re in the midst of feeling that way, you don’t even realize it.  I didn’t feel guilty about not changing up my workouts because I was still running about forty miles a week and consistently lifting three times each week. I was working out…  I just wasn’t pushing to be the best that I could be. I was simply maintaining. 

And then an injury happened…  It sidelined me from doing what I loved – running marathons.  I could no longer go out and spend Saturday mornings with my Cruiser friends running sixteen to twenty miles. I could no longer run another marathon just for the fun of it.  I had to reinvent myself.

I was no longer a marathoner, and I had to prove myself all over again – at new shorter distances. I realized that I could get fast again if I worked hard. I brought back the tempo runs, the hill repeats, and more importantly a plan. I set yearly goals, I signed up for shorter races at a variety of distances, and I pushed myself hard. I forced myself out of my comfort zone.

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I was no longer apathetic and nonchalant toward my training.  I had a plan and I was going to make it happen. I learned that pushing myself gave me a whole new passion toward running. I learned that with consistency and a little hard work, I could do well and place in my age group – sometimes even win.  

My passion came back, I kicked complacency to the curb, and ran right over it.

 

Do you ever find yourself becoming complacent?

 

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Deb Runs
 
 


Next Wednesday’s Word:  Ageless